Joshua is a writer, bartender, whiskey enthusiast and spirits educator based in New York. You can also find him at A Whiskey Rebellion and @jrwortman.
Fall weather, football, roast turkey and pumpkin pie are just a few of the things to be thankful for tomorrow. But a true northern Thanksgiving feast is not complete without mulled apple cider to soothe the nerves and the relatives. Cider, both fresh from the local cider mill, and hard from being left to ferment [...]
Gin has been enjoying a revival on the spirits scene for the past few years now with new and old brands taking up space both on cocktail menus and store shelves. This historic spirit, with juniper as is primary defining botanical has forced brands to question how to define or to re-define themselves to consumers. [...]
The Ainsworth Ok, I know. Don’t look at me like I’m crazy. I realize it’s 12:30 in the afternoon on a Sunday and the last thing you want is some mezcal, benedictine, egg white thingamajig with a Laphroaig rinse, but hear me out. For those of us who consider Sunday afternoons during football season to be [...]
A 'valinch' doing what it does best It was fitting that it was Iain McCallum who introduced me to Valinch, the latest expression from Lowland distillery Auchentoshan (pronounced “ock-un-tosh-un”). McCallum, currently the Master of Malts at Morrison Bowmore Distillers, spent many an hour with a valinch in hand in his previous role as distillery manager at [...]
So Labor Day has passed and they tell me I cannot wear my white tuxedo anymore. Well, I don’t know who “they” are, but they can take their fashion fascism and shove it. So in celebration of things white, both sartorial and spirited, I will don my finest blanche threads and bluchers and order some [...]
Genever may be the largest spirits category in the Netherlands and has been enjoying some popularity here among bartenders and the cocktail crowd, but its identity and place both on the shelf and in the glass can be a bit confusing. With their newest expression, a Barrel-Aged Genever, Lucas Bols aims to make the spirit [...]
Last week at Ward III artisanal whisky company Compass Box launched Great King Street, their new range of blended scotch. From Spice Tree to Peat Monster, Compass Box has been making fine, interesting blends since its founding in 2000 but with Great King Street and its inaugural expression the Artist’s Blend, Whiskymaker John Glaser says [...]
First there were the speakeasies, soon followed by the steampunk mustaches, now the current ubiquity of giant 18th century silver punchbowls and presently I will reveal the latest soon-to-be trend coming to your nearby revivalist watering hole: red-hot, iron loggerheads making fresh ‘flip.’ Indeed, there is likely an entire generation of young Midwesterners looking to [...]
It seems like it was barely two months ago that we put away our winter clothes. That’s because it probably was. The outrageously short timeframe us New Yorkers have to enjoy summer extends to summer cocktail season as well. Right now, bartenders are furiously mixing away with dark spirits and spices with which to populate [...]
In follow-up to our piece on Occupational Hazards, we thought we would include some other great examples of cocktails prepared at this years Tales of the Cocktail that embraced the sensibility of “drinking better.” Lucky for us, we saw and sampled a number of delicious drinks that looked to garden-fresh ingredients and natural sweeteners, some [...]
